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We Enjoy Being Out with Friends

We split our leisure time between home, friends, and family. When just staying home, we enjoy reading and watching a little television. Most of our home time, though, is spent with our pets. We enjoy taking them for walks around our neighborhood and up to the park. Nathan also likes the "help" they offer while he's working in the yard.

Skating Fun

We have a large network of friends that we enjoy spending time with. We get together with friends at least once a week for one of their children's birthday parties, a group "date night," or family game nights. We also like going to high school football games, an occasional college football game with Nathan's college buddies, and a few professional basketball games.

Our casual family time is mostly spent with Nathan's family since they live close to us. We like to get together for dinner once a week. We will also go visit Nathan's grandparents a couple of times each month. Both of our families enjoy traveling, and we typically go on family vacations at least once a year. We travel with each other, too, and look forward to these trips as an opportunity for our children to spend quality time with us, their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Discovering a Starfish with Our Nephew

As teachers, we believe strongly in providing a sound education for our children at all levels. Education begins immediately and in the home. We already have a steadily growing library for our child. We will read to him/her constantly to instill a love of reading, the basis for any good education. Sports is an important part of education. We believe it teaches children to learn to interact with others, develop cooperation and social skills, as well as promote problem solving skills. We enjoy a variety of sports and look forward to taking our children to games and eventually coaching their sports teams.

Nathan Building with Our Niece

We also know that formal education is extremely important. We have already started looking at daycare/pre-school settings and want to find one that is nurturing and developmental. When it comes to starting school, we plan to ensure that we live in an area with schools that offer a quality education as well as a variety of extra-curricular activities. We also want to know that our children will be exposed to a mix of students and are looking for schools that are culturally diverse.

Our ultimate goal, educationally, is for our children to attend post high school education. Because of this, we, along with our parents, will open and regularly contribute to a college fund for our child as soon as they are born.

Christmas with Our Dogs, Livy and Oliver

Although there are many qualities we admire in each other, when we discuss them, a few stand out for each of us.

When Nathan thinks of what he loves best about Joyce, the first thing that comes to mind is her sense of community. Joyce cares about others and takes a genuine interest in the lives of those around her. This quality is most obvious when you watch her interact with her students. She always wants the best for them and takes a deep, personal interest in their lives. Within our relationship, Nathan respects the fact that Joyce's sense of community enables him to see other people's points of view and look deeper into topics that he would otherwise overlook.

When Joyce thinks about Nathan's best qualities, his loyalty is the first thing that comes to mind. Nathan is fiercely loyal to those he loves; he is protective and sensitive to their needs. Joyce also believes this quality is what makes Nathan such a good life partner. Joyce knows that Nathan will always support her and push her to be the best person she can be.

With these and countless wonderful qualities, we share an open, fun, and loving relationship.